


The One Pulling the Strings

by IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 11:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19811131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow/pseuds/IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow
Summary: Inspired by the prompt "I need a place to stay". Pre-series.





	The One Pulling the Strings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caissa/gifts).



Her home is a crime scene. Literally. Investigators swarmed with their cameras and baggies, hoping to scoop up any evidence they could find before she was carted away for hospital observation.

As she lays in the hospital bed, Hannibal speaks eloquently to the detective, weaving a miraculously well-constructed web that further convinces her that this had been his _plan_. He _intended_ to rewrite her life. Based on the way he effortlessnessly lies, his tailored person-suit at it's finest, she suspects this isn't the first time he has attempted to _adjust_ someone to fit his image.

She sits shell-shocked, her eyes darting back and forth, putting together the pieces. Two nights ago he was in her bed and now? She felt used and betrayed. _Stupid_. He was testing her, that much she was sure, but she was _angry_ at the way he toyed with her life, her livelihood. Her mind. How easily he thought she would fall in line.

 _"I can help you, if you ask me to."_ His voice echoes in her head. Because _of course_ she had to ask him for help. Then, she would be inviting his game, she now realizes. She would be _indebted_ to him. Forced to play.

"Does that sound right, Dr. Du Maurier?" the detective's voice draws her from her reverie. 

"Yes," she nearly croaks, throat beginning to bloom with the bruises of Hannibal's _help_. Her clothes are bloody and torn. There is dried, caked blood under her fingernails.

* * *

Hannibal returns the next morning and stops before reaching the door, hearing her strained voice. 

"I need a place to stay." She pauses while he patiently waits in hiding, eavesdropping on her conversation. "Yes, I will be ready shortly."

When she's finished with her caller, Hannibal casually walks into the room. She is dressed in casual clothes, yoga pants and a large pullover with John's Hopkins printed in blue across the chest. Her hair uncurled and straight is longer than he realized. She looks young, and he finally realizes the extent to which her clothing provides armor and disguise.

Beside her bedside rests a discreet duffle. He is unsure _where_ or _who_ it came from. 

She does not look surprised to see him, but instead seems _disappointed_? annoyed? concerned? He can't seem to place her expression.

She grabbed her bag and briefly flinched at the pain it caused her. She tried to pass Hannibal, turning her face and refusing to acknowledge him, but he grabbed her wrist.

" _Bedelia_ , wait."

She shook free from him, and finally looked at him. Her voice was low and gravely. 

"You think I'm like you, Hannibal. But I'm _not_." 

"But-"

"Find someone else to be your _puppet,_ " she says indignantly and he can see the betrayal shining in her eyes. His _happening_ so many years ago had been his desire, his choice. And yet he tried to remove her agency. 

" _Delia_ -" he tries to reason before she cuts him off again.

"It's _Doctor Du Maurier_."

She turns her back on him then, her long blonde hair flipping over her shoulder as she exits the room. 

Hannibal is not surprised when he gets a formal referral in the mail for another psychiatrist. He is slightly alarmed when he seeks her out, in spite of the impropriety, and finds her house unlived in. Clothes adorning the furniture and her personal affects gone. The carpet white her office is replaced with dark hardwoods. However, the permanence of his lapse in judgement becomes realized when the hot gossip in the psychiatric community is Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier's early retirement. 

Bedelia's words had stung him, but her exile from psychiatry hurt him more. Mostly because he knew her exit had not been entirely voluntary- he had forced her hand.

Packing a bag and setting out for Connecticut, his mind swirled with thoughts. He needed to find her and somehow make this right. He would find a way. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wonder what happened between the time of the "attack", Bedelia's retirement, and her return to psychiatry (with Hannibal as her only patient). This was my attempt to fill in some of it. I just thought that she wouldn't accept blackmail so easily. She would run, just like on the show cause she knows when to get out a dodge. Let me know your thoughts, y'all!


End file.
